Operating condition setting method for injection molding machine

ABSTRACT

An operating condition setting method for an injection molding machine, which can variably set respective operating conditions for an injection molding operation of an injection molding machine without rewriting a numerical control program for controlling the injection molding operation. 
     The numerical control program is formed using macro parameters which describe the respective operating conditions. The set values of the respective operating conditions are set for corresponding macro parameters. The set values are stored at predetermined addesses in a memory (4) which are assigned to the macro parameters. During injection, the corresponding macro parameters in the program are read out of memory (4) so that the machine is controlled in accordance with the set values.

This is a continuation of co-pending application Ser. No. 890,855 filedon July 23, 1986, now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a method for setting various operatingconditions of an injection molding machine.

2. Description of the Related Art

In an injection molding machine, various operating conditions, whichaccompany an injection molding process, such as a mold opening limitposition, a mold contact position, a mold moving speed, a position forchanging the mold moving speed, an eject start position, a core setposition, a core pulling position, an injection speed, and a switchposition for the injection speed must be set. Conventional injectionmolding machines control this injection molding process by a programdescribing set values of these operating conditions. Therefore, whenthese conditions are changed, the program itself must be altered, and anew program must be created.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of settingoperating conditions for an injection molding machine. Such a method canvariably set various operating conditions of the injection moldingoperations simply by changing a mold moving or injection speed, or aswitching position thereof without creating a new molding numericalcontrol (NC) unit program, provided that the patterns of the injectionmolding operations, such as mold clamping and injection processes, arethe same, i.e., that the number of switching stages of the mold movingspeed for mold clamping or the number of switching stages of theinjection speed for the injection is the same.

In order to achieve the above object, according to the presentinvention, the injection moding machine is controlled by numericalcontrol unit. A numerical control program used for controlling theinjection molding operation of the injection molding machine is createdfor the various operating conditions using macro parameters.

Memory areas corresponding to the macro parameters are respectivelypredetermined. Meanwhile, values of the operating conditions are set forcorresponding macro parameters. The set values of the operatingconditions are respectively stored in the memory areas assigned to thecorresponding macro parameters.

With this method, the set values of various operating conditions for therespective operations during injection molding can be arbitrarily inputto correspond to macro parameters. During operation of the injectionmolding machine, when a macro parameter in an NC program is read, thecorresponding set data is read out and a predetermined injection moldingoperation is executed in according with the readout data.

In this manner, according to the present invention, the set values ofthe various operating conditions in the injection molding process can bearbitrarily changed provided that the operating patterns of theinjection molding process are the same. Therefore, unlike in aconventional system, since the program itself need not be altered everytime the various operating conditions of the injection molding processare changed, an economical effect can be obtained. In addition, anoptimum injection molding operating condition can be selected inaccordance with the mold or the molding material to be used.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block circuit diagram of a control section of an injectionmolding machine showing an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 2 shows an example of a display screen of a display unit which anoperating condition to be set is selected.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1 shows a control section of an injection molding machine. In FIG.1, reference numeral 1 denotes a computerized numerical controller (tobe referred to as a CNC hereinafter) which constitutes the controlsection; 2 refers to a central processing unit (to be referred to as aCPU hereinafter); 3 refers to a ROM, which stores a a control programfor the entire injection molding machine; 4 refers to a non-volatilepattern-storing memory which stores an NC program for executing apredetermined injection molding operation, e.g., a mold clamping processpattern and an injection process pattern; 5 refers to a non-volatilemacro parameter storing memory which stores various operating conditions(to be described later) for injection molding as macro parameters; 6refers to a RAM, which is used for temporarily storing data, some ofwhich is selected by use of the soft keys K1 to K10 (FIG. 2) of adisplay unit 8; 8 refers to a display unit, which can be a CRT, use ofone of the soft keys, which correspond to one of the patterns of theinjection molding operation of display unit 8 causes the userdeterminable various operating conditions of that pattern to bedisplayed; 7 refers to a manual input unit for manually entering thevarious operating conditions and various commands which are then storedin the main parameter storing memory 5; and 9 refers to an input/outputcircuit. The input/output circuit 9 is connected to various sensors (notshown) provided in the injection molding machine, and to either a servocircuit 11 of a servo motor for mold clamping or a servo motor forinjection (neither servo motor is shown) in the injection moldingmachine 12. Note that reference numeral 10 denotes a bus.

FIG. 2 shows a display screen of the display unit 8 on which a clamp(mold opening/closing) setting display is selected and provided. Inorder to reach the selective display step, the display unit 8 has thesoft keys K1 to K10, which are display screen selection keys forselecting the general injection molding processes, such as clamp,injection conditions, ejector or extruder conditions, temperature, spruebreak, and so on. When one of the soft keys K1 to K10 is operated toselect a required display, for example a display for clamp setting,various operating conditions for that patterned process, whichconstitutes a part of the injection molding cycle of the program storedin the non-volatile memory 4, are displayed as shown in FIG. 2. Thevarious operating conditions for the clamp process and so on in themolding cycle are described as macro parameters in the NC program storedin the non-volatile memory 4, which executes the injection moldingcycle, as will be described later. In order to actually determine thespecific the clamp conditions and to execute the clamp process, thevalues of the macro parameters representing the various correspondingoperating conditions are set separately. The operator sequentiallyselects respective set operating conditions I1 to I12 on the displayscreen, which are described as macro parameters in the clamp processexecuting program, through the manual input unit 7, and sequentiallysets set values L1 to L5, V1 to V5, P, and T corresponding to theselected set conditions I1 to I12. By this procedure, the actual valuesof the respective macro parameters are determined. Therefore, the CPU 2causes the non-volatile macro parameter memory 5 to store, at itspredetermined addresses as a predetermined memory area, set values ofoperating conditions corresponding to the predetermined addresses, i.e.,specific values of the macro parameters. In this case, for example,value L1 corresponding to macro parameter 500 is stored at an address ofmacro parameter 500, value L2 corresponding to macro parameter 501 isstored at an address of macro parameter 501, etc., as shown in the Tablebelow.

    ______________________________________                                                   500  . . .  L1                                                                501  . . .  L2                                                                502  . . .  L3                                                                503  . . .  L4                                                                504  . . .  L5                                                                505  . . .  Vl                                                                506  . . .  V2                                                                .                                                                             .                                                                             .                                                                             511  . . .  T                                                      ______________________________________                                    

As previously mentioned, the program stored in the non-volatile memory 4has the NC program corresponding to the respective set data described bythe use of the macro parameters. For example, the program uses macroparameters as follows.

    ______________________________________                                        G01Y#501,         F#505                                                       Y#502,            F#506                                                       .                  .                                                          .                  .                                                          .                  .                                                          ______________________________________                                    

Note that G01 denotes a linear interpolation function, Y designates anactuating spindle, i.e., in this case, a mold clamping servo motor (notshown) for a spindle for performing mold clamping, and F represents anaddress for designating a feed speed. As a result, in accordance withthe NC program, the CPU 2 drives the mold clamping servo motor throughthe input/output circuit 9 and the servo circuit 11 of the mold clampingservo motor, so that a mold (not shown) is moved to a position L2 (moldprotection start position) stored at an address of macro parameter 501at a feed speed V1 stored at an address of macro parameter 505.Similarly, in the next step, mold clamping is executed so that the moldreaches a position stored at an address of macro parameter 502, i.e.,the position L3 (mold contact position), at a speed V2 stored at anaddress of macro parameter 506.

In this manner, the various condition values in the NC program stored inthe non-volatile memory 4 for executing the respective processes aredescribed as macro parameters, and the various condition values can bechanged by the manual input unit 7 through the macro parameters.

As a result, when the operating patterns of the respective injectionmolding processes are the same and various conditions such as a positionfor operation switching or a speed are different, a desired injectionmolding process can be obtained simply by setting the variousconditions. The NC program or original program need be changed toproduce a new program only when the operating patterns of the processesare different, e.g., when the number of program stages for the injectionspeed is changed from three to four.

In the above embodiment, the display unit 8 is used to set the variousconditions and execute macro parameter processing. However, the displayunit can be omitted if the various conditions are selected andcorresponding set values are input by the manual input unit 7 and storedin the non-volatile memory 4, thereby executing macro parameterprocessing.

I claim:
 1. A method for setting operating conditions for injectionmolding conditions of an injection molding machine controlled by anumerical control unit having a memory storing an injection operationcontrol program including injection operations, comprising the stepsof:(a) providing fixed operation sequence macros for the operations inthe control program, said macros included in said program; (b) reservinga portion of the memory for storing macro parameters for each of themacros; (c) entering macro parameter values for each of the operations;(d) storing the macro parameter values in the reserved portion of thememory; and (e) producing numerical control using the macros and macroparameters without altering said program and without producing a newprogram.
 2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said numericalcontrol unit includes a display, display selecting means and valueentering means, and step (c) includes the steps of:(c1) displaying macroparameter definitions and value entry spaces corresponding to thedefinition on said display; and (c2) selecting the macro definitionusing said display selecting means and entering the macro parametervalues for corresponding definitions using said value entering means.